Thursday, December 28, 2006

Cube in the Cage

The Good Old Days of MMA

Remember the old days of mixed martial arts, before the big TV deals and the sold-out events with a minimum ticket price of $100. Take yourself back to a time before the record-breaking pay-per-view sales, before Chuck Liddell was bigger than Chuck Norris. A time even before porn stars dated fighters because it was cool.

Ah yes, the good old days of 2004.

If I had a dollar for every breaking development that has taken place in MMA over the past two years, I’d be walking around like a stripper at Denny’s after 4 AM paying for my food with a HUGE stack of singles. I’m serious, I would be at the bar paying for me and my girl’s drinks with a handful of one’s like I was the man.

All jokes aside, MMA is that big now. So if you really were getting paid a George Washington for every monumental change in the sport, let’s just say you would have a lot of George Washington’s to shell out for your monthly pay-per-view bill. And with so many different pay-per-view fight shows to choose from, you need all the George Washington’s you can get.

In the timeframe of two years, Spike TV has become UFC TV, with an assortment of Zuffa-related programming, including a hit television show that at times has pushed the barriers of brutality, as well as bi-sexuality a few too many unfortunate times, but hey, to each their own. Besides, if Josh Koscheck and Kenny Florian want to walk around together wearing hip-huggers, and if Lodune Sincaid wants to bend over in front of his housemates wearing nothing but a thong, just imagine all the one-dollar bills they could make. But I digress.

It has come to the point that Fox Sports Television is now broadcasting both the Pride Fighting Championships and the International Fight League in order to compete with the Spike/UFC television channel. Because obviously, the only thing better than having one fight organization is having two. No doubt jealous of Fox Sports having two, UFC went ahead and purchased WEC and WFA. You can almost hear Dana White saying, “yeah, you may have two, but now we have three f*%@ing shows!”

Now there is a fight show on Showtime, and rumors of another one that will be shown on HBO. At this rate, I can’t wait to see the pre-teen division on Nickelodeon in another two years. Who’s ready for Playmates in the Octagon? Ah yes, the good old days of MMA.